Dr. Diego Bohórquez

And on a Monday, he came in, and he said, like, you know, it has a ring to it.

I think that we should use it.

But essentially the thought was that if these cells are contacting, then perhaps they are passing information directly onto the nervous system.

And that is very different than just spewing neuromodulators

in the vicinity and hoping that some of those catch the nervous system, right?

And like I said, while that still exists, and I think that is just like matter of space and time, like they modulate these terminals in a different space and time, the hormones, but the transmission, the neurotransmission is directly and more precise in space and time.

Could I just interrupt for a moment, please?

This is where the conversation becomes expansive because

these neuropods or cousins of these neuropods.

So these neuropods are simply a specialized neuroepithelial cells, meaning that are electrically excitable, that they can discharge electricity, but they are, these type of cells are in every single epithelial cell or epithelial layer of the body, because that's how the body creates a representation of the world through sensor cells that are equipped to detect the outside world

meaning that they can be exposed to fluctuations in temperature, fluctuations in pH, fluctuations in concentrations.

And then they quickly can generate a chemoelectrical code that they pass it on to the nervous system.

And then ultimately the brain integrates that and says like, oh, my belly is feeling good, but I'm feeling cold in the skin, right?

And that is thanks to all of these neuropithelial cells that they are even in...

tasting, so to speak, the cerebrospinal fluid inside of the spinal cord and the ventricles.

They are inside of the inner ears, the taste buds.

And in fact, there's a beautiful book from the 70s from some Japanese scientists, Fujita Kanon Kobayashi, who called these cells paraneurons.

And their whole concept is that there was not such a discrete distinction between an entire neuron that lives inside of the brain or the central nervous system and a neuroepithelial or a neuroendocrine cell that lives exposed to the outside.

Simply that there is a continuum of adaptation so the organism can bring the information from outside, inside, into the body to be able to process it and then guide behavior.

And we probably shouldn't be aware, you know, like as I often say, like if you and I are having a conversation, we probably shouldn't be aware of the macrophage in the spleen that is chasing this bacterium that got inside of the lettuce that we swallowed at lunch, right?